Your kind invitation to dinner to day has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come — and for reasons of the
most humiliating nature in my personal appearance. You may conceive my deep mortification in making this disclosure to you —
but it was necessary. If you will be my friend so far as to loan me $20 I will call on you to morrow — otherwise it will be
impossible, and I must submit to my fate.

Sincerely, Yours E A Poe

J. P. Kennedy Esqr

Sunday, 15th

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Notes:

This letter is printed here with permission from the Archives of the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Maryland.